Pratt & Whitney Canada officials declined to say if an incident described by airport authorities as an engine fire aboard a test flight Tuesday morning involved the geared turbofan (GTF) motor that will power Bombardier Inc.’s future CSeries airliner.

Bombardier Aerospace spokeswoman Marianella de la Barrera said she couldn’t confirm it was the same model of engine that powers Bombardier’s three CSeries flight-test craft.

François Asselin, a spokesperson for Aéroports de Montréal, said that the incident occurred on takeoff from Mirabel aboard a Boeing 747 operated by Pratt & Whitney Canada for testing various engines.

The blue-and-white jet is powered by four engines and a pylon affixes a fifth engine on one wing to conduct a battery of tests on it.

“The 747 took off with a test engine aboard at about 10:35 a.m. this morning, and there was the beginning of a fire on takeoff. The fire was put out quickly and the plane landed at 11:16 a.m. without (further) incident.”

Asselin said the fire was “on the extra engine, the engine they were testing.”

“We were told there was a problem with the engine, so we deployed the appropriate (safety) measures.”

However, later in the day after other officials were contacted about this story, Asselin phoned The Gazette. An engine fire “was what we heard at the time, but you’ll have to get confirmation on that from Pratt,” he said.

Pratt & Whitney Canada spokesperson Nancy German said that there is no preliminary conclusive evidence that there had been an engine fire aboard the aircraft that carried 14 people.

Asked if the engine was the PW1500G, the model that is involved in the CSeries test-flight program, German replied: “I don’t have that information.”

The engine-maker “is just starting to receive information (on the incident) in small dribs and drabs,” German said.

She said that “the control tower saw something abnormal. I can’t say what.”

“They advised the pilots that according to them, there was something abnormal and the pilots decided to return to base.”

“But there was no fire or any emergency procedures. No emergency was declared.”

A visual inspection after landing revealed no evidence of fire, German said.

If it does involve the GTF, the incident comes at an awkward time for Bombardier, right before Thursday’s annual shareholders meeting and a call with analysts. The company has been criticized for a sluggish order intake for its CSeries — which it calls a game-changer — as well as for the slow pace of the flight-test program.

Bombardier’s spokesperson referred most questions to Pratt & Whitney.

After checking with Robert Dewar, the executive in charge of CSeries development, de la Barrera parsed her statements carefully.

“We are aware of the incident. ... We are in discussions with Pratt to find out more. So we can’t comment at this stage.”

“But it’s not the CSeries that was involved. ... Neither Bombardier nor the CSeries GTF engine has experienced such an incident. As far as the actual engine on that specific (Pratt) aircraft goes that had the incident this morning, you need to talk to Pratt about it.”

Asked if the incident could affect the CSeries flight-test schedule, she replied: “No. The CSeries is making solid progress with the engine that we have. We’ll talk more about this during our (earnings call and annual meeting).”

The three flight-test craft are not being grounded, she added.

Asked if there could be a pause in the flight testing until more definitive results are in from the incident, she said: “We’re waiting to hear back from Pratt, but from our perspective, it’s business as usual.”

“Obviously, Pratt is focused right now on finding out more about the incident, so they have provided us with a heads-up. But we don’t have any more specifics.”

The CSeries flight-test program was recently extended to the end of 2015, beyond aviation observers’ expectations. But Bombardier has consistently said that the new-technology engine was performing as planned and that it expected no delay from the GTF.

Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower family of GTF engines is destined for a host of future aircraft types, including Bombardier’s CSeries.

There have been “no incidents, none at all” on the six Pratt & Whitney GTF engines that are powering Bombardier’s three flight-test CSeries aircraft, de la Barrera said.

Transport Canada officials could not provide more information on the incident.

fshalom@ montrealgazette.com

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